the indelible impressions of repetitions, or maybe 'why it happens the same way'

these humans are for sure creatures of habit. when we get ideas and then write them down, we remember them. they make sense when we do that, and then the ideas might grow into something useful, or they might not. when we get ideas and dont write them down, we rarely remember them. and then they are useless. its either one or the other, for me it is at least. and for the last few weeks it's been one and now it'll be the other. the flip happened.

i've never been able to particularly identify what initiates my bouts with writer's block, well damn i suppose ive had bouts of a lot of things. in fact, as human do, projecting our lives forward, i cant help but predict many more bouts with various things in the future. some good some bad. but i digress, severely. i have ideas, just as we all do im sure. and in case you forgot, im talking about writing. but the 'hows and whys' arent really important to me, because i love very little more than that feeling just before i get that spark to write. its worth it to not write for a while in order to feel like this. thats what im trying to say.

given im in the smithing mood, then what to say? well thats not really a question. not one that ever merits answering directly anyway. but we do it anyway.

dylan is on the mind. dylan started it. this time and maybe the time before that, certainly he starts it most times. i hear dylan and i feel aware, motivated to do something, anything. whatever it is would be great and meaningful. i notice what doesnt make sense. i think about what my room looked like before i lived here, and what it might look like afterward, then i see this place decrepit. and then i think about what itd be like if i lived here when it was in such a state. i hover on that thought. then i move on because i think 'who gives a shit about that.'

i think about that day in 1966 that i wasnt alive. one of those days you most wish you had been though, in any capacity. good thing they made a recording of it.

it wasnt after the intermission that the paradigm shift of dylan non electric/electric occured. its not like the journos try to say it is. but it has to be made easy, or else people forget it.

the discussion of that event, or newport, or 65-66 in general inevitably begs the question for a listener casual or dedicated,' which are you for, electric or acoustic.' to answer by ignoring the obvious absurdity and apathetic simplicity of the question i'll answer it with what will probably be perceived as more absurdity and even more apathetic simplicity. id say id prefer the dylan of the intermission between the two sets. there was the dylan who knew that it was not he who was fixing to change his own figurative hat, but that it was in fact the audience and those around him who were, the ones actually in control of the framing of his image. here was the dylan who was not one or the other, but both, which is really neither at all. to the audience he no longer existed and so he could only be himself. with everybody knowing that he'd walk onstage in a few minutes and be immediately framed as a different person, as a traitor and not a champion. its fascinating to think about such transformations in such a pejorative context. to think about that is to wonder what change really is. and i dont know what it is. not sure we can know. not tonight anyway.

makes me wish i had a scrapbook of ephemera from my life. or really just concert tickets. but perhaps its better that my concert tickets are scattered around, in different boxes, pockets and whatever else. itll make that occasional finding of them meaningful, and gloss over the perpetual re-losing of them. because thats just what seems to happen.

decided to read blood meridian again. this happens from time to time. so incredible when the best western ever written is a categorical denouncing of manifest destiny. i'd sure like to rewind history on that one. im going to do so right quick.

horace greeley says 'go west, young man.' hello american exceptionalism.
creepy way to claim the presence of divine intervention. not sure it worked out so well here, unless you were a white guy.
ratzel comes to the usa, sees what he sees, goes back to germany saying 'lebensraum' and then we get the nazis.

anyway. might talk tomorrow about the bison economy. thats a fun one. good one for pissing people off.

tarkovsky

i like him. didn't know he took pictures too, thought it makes sense that he did. fun stuff for a gloomy saturday.

http://riowang.blogspot.com/2010/06/tarkovskys-polaroids.html

oh and this

http://thegreenhorns.wordpress.com/essays/essay-in-distrust-of-movements-by-wendell-berry/

music-fela, and afro-celt

oh my

dropped the ball on arcade fire, thats a shame. but really how i described it last week is probably good enough, so i'll leave it there.

i really like where i live now. its fun and i like how it smells. do not like how gq magazines smell.

us kids know

crimony, its been two days and i havent talked about the event yet. if i wait any longer ill have to start making up stuff that happened, or rather didnt happen. unfortunately, its 600, bright and hot, so im not creative. ill have something tonight. maybe.

i will mention though, running to my seats, running, with spoon playing 'the ghost of you lingers' was incredible. spoon live, with their distortion and woo tube effects reverberating in general, but eulogized by the metal roof of the amphitheater was incredible, and especially so for that song, when i wasnt giving them the gaze. haunting. and that was just the start of it.

good stuff

gonna go back into the vault tonight..... not too deep though. and ill try to steer clear of stax and chess records and those usual suspects for this sort of thing.

jimmy mcgriff. funk. hammond b3. good shit.

bukka white. one man wrecking machine. played the national like this, but also slapped pretty well too, see 'aberdeen mississippi blues'. straight up beast. good shit.

baby face willette. made just a few records on blue note, then died. so emotive. good shit.

mississippi fred. the first generation of the north mississippi guys and maybe the most captivating, the second gen being rl burnside and junior kimbrough. who ive already expounded enough upon, i think. wish my right index finger worked like that. good shit.

eric dolpy. died young and weirdly, read his bio. mostly known as a sideman for coltrane, mingus, coleman, hamilton, nelson, et al, but as a band leader he was actually pretty big and influential for jimi hendrix, and you can hear it. good shit.

all i got

mash up

this


and this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXlaOsNBDkk

skreams new one is out today, this is on it. not as good as his remix of in for the kill. which was just on entourage. show has been good the last two weeks.

in defense of, part XII

set design.

full disclosure- ive had like 5 mojitos. so where two days ago i was not tom bissell and colson whitehead, today maybe i am. though, id like to think this is more like nick hornby, who certainly had a drink or two whilst writing. maybe perhaps though, irvine welsh-sans heroin.

set design is very big for me, from plays-which i love (still need to see rothko and fela). but musically (though fela is) from radiohead (obviously on the in rainbows tour, it was the best ever, the must anti bush, most traumatic, whatever, set design ever.) my god, the lights, the lights. etc. to bat for lashes, to hell i dunno im fascinated by every show i go to, so after radiohead this is a moot point. that being said, i havent yet watched any youtube videos for the arcade fire tour that ill be an active participant on for wednesday. i use for here in the glaswegian sense. and spoon. spoon is actually a band i like more than arcade fire, but unfortunately im locked in the paradigm that the headliner is the most important band.

this did not use to be the case.

however, in outdoor amphitheatre shows its my experience that the opening act never gets the credit they deserve, even though over spoon's 20 year history they are musically more (dont hate me) significant than arcade fire in terms of the influence they have on genres in general. socially they provide a certain steady outlet too, which is nice. while arcade fire, well musically nobody is really ripping them off, and socially the mainstream perception of them is well theyre left wing, so we like them and they have a haitian girl, so thats topical. in a slightly more lucid state (though i feel quite lucid enough, thank you very much, just not willing to spend time elaborating) id well, elaborate more. for lack of better words. fact of the matter is, and heres the point im trying to make, is that people take arcade fire at face value, though they really shouldnt. i mean to be honest, most people, in fact not most people, but only really like 10 people in the world listen to arcade fire through through the lens of habermas, et al, etc. habermas because of deliberative democracy, but others for other things.

anyway thats more or less what ive got on that. i started this meaning to say i havent seen the set design for arcade fire so im ready to be surprised. and i always wanted to see spoon first in austin so maybe this is a bit bittersweet for me, and im willing to demphasize losing my spoon virginity to ugly hotlanta. thats really what i meant.

anyway, im in the mood for new jersey